


The Usual and the Quiet

by Raspberry_Omega



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: M/M, This is the tag that took me ten minutes to think of just so there is one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-21
Updated: 2017-12-21
Packaged: 2019-02-18 04:00:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13091973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Raspberry_Omega/pseuds/Raspberry_Omega
Summary: Tailgate spends his countdown time enjoying being confused by how he feels.





	The Usual and the Quiet

**Author's Note:**

> I didn’t look it up in the book before getting down to this. Tailgate’s diagnosis is immediately followed by the discovery of the portal in the same issue, which leaves no time for this scrap I wrote here to happen, so please imagine there is a ‘weekend’ between those two incidents if you wish to put up with what’s posted below.

The moment his comm-link beeped, Tailgate was sitting on the floor of what could be considered the least visited room on the Lost Light, apart from the maintenance droids' routine check-ups. He had no idea what it was called, but it had giant fans installed close to the top, and was probably intended for keeping up the balance of atmospheric pressure within and without the ship. He guessed, like he always had to.

It was freezing in there, the kind of temperature that would certainly induce system malfunctions if a bot stayed in it long enough. But he felt like it was completely fine. He could not recall the point when this started, but he had lost the reflexes to almost everything he used to consider unbearable.

The countdown time was a constant floater in his HUD, part of everything in his visual wherever he looked. It should've evoked something. Somehow it never did. He could not react to it the correct way. All fiction is funny, he thought, for they have theories about your emotions when you're dying slowly. Sometimes, perhaps more often than never, you'd just feel the absence of them all.

And when he pulled his attention away from all that, everything seemed exhilarating. Like this in-coming message which just popped up in his comm.

'Special discount at Swerve's this weekend. Also Engex on the house for any couple who make their relationship public!'

Exhilarating. It wasn't much to do with him - it wasn't even addressed to him (to All Aboard the Lost Light), but delightful nonetheless. Other people's happiness.

He started daydreaming. He had a scenario going on in the theatre of his processor where Cyclonus followed into this compartment and dragged him out. 'Tailgate, what have you been thinking? Do you not feel how cold this place is? Come back into the Hall and get warm.'

He should despise himself for the plot of this scenario. Somehow he couldn't bring himself to. Anyway, Cyclonus did not come, which was a reasonable followup to the daydreams of Tailgate the bomb disposal specialist, whose hopes and wishes so severely lacked anchoring that they went wild, rootless and outweighed what he really had been.

Things went on like normal. When that countdown reached zero, everyone else would be having a new cycle, and he would be having peace. Things would still go on like normal for all. They were fine with this normality and so he should be too.

* * *

  
Tailgate messaged Cyclonus on the way to Swerve's. He prohibited his processor from thinking up a reason for this.

'Where are you?'

He waited for a long time, checking every minute.

There was no reply.

* * *

 

Swerve's was packed. There was no vacant seat. Even standing room took some good seeking, but Tailgate eventually managed to squeeze his tiny frame through the crowd and arrived at the counter.

The metallurgist was wiping glasses clean with a rug in a speedy professional style as he greeted the small white mech with a wide grin and a nod.

'I'd like...no, actually,' Tailgate rubbed his servos together, the way he always did when he got nervous, 'has Cyclonus ever been here? ...to - to drink?'

'Ah, you're here for the event?' Swerve's high spirits went higher, 'I knew there's something going on between you two. Tell me, tell me -'

'No. No, it's just... Never mind.' Tailgate felt his faceplates burn. Swerve just had to schedule an event like this right now when the countdown in his HUD wouldn't allow him another weekend at the bar. Then again, the bartender did not know about it. No, nothing was going on between Cyclonus and him and he definitely was not here for the lovers' event. He was just asking in hope that... he did not know why he asked any more.

Swerve had possibly noticed how absent-minded Tailgate was, so besides passing him the drink he ordered, the bartender refrained from bringing up another word.

Tailgate took a look around. On the far end to his right, Rodimus was drunkenly flirting with Magnus, who was wearing the angrier version of his two faces and drinking something that, judging by the appearance, was probably suitable for both grown bots and sparklings alike.

The big round table in the middle was being used as a stage for the time being, and the current show of 'tell the whole crew about your secret affairs' was going on between two mechs who blatantly claimed that they were 'just a couple tonight for the free drinks'. That was, somehow, not against the rules of the event according to the owner of the bar, even though Drift and Perceptor were obviously just trying to make Swerve pay for the generosity as they handed out glasses around the table for anybot who felt like it.

Skids sat to the left of the doorway right past the entrance, clutching his drink, and the confused scowl on his face seemed to indicate that he was painstakingly trying to recall something, or someone, appropriate to this occasion.

Everyone looked cheerful. All was nice and fine.

'Maybe you should comm Cyclonus and, you know,' Swerve suggested, excited.

But it was not about Cyclonus and him. Swerve had never been other than excited, or interested in everybot's scrap. To take it as a sign that the universe cared a word about him would be stupid. But Tailgate still found himself pleased by Swerve's concern, the excuse being, he never was that sharp in anything after all.

'I think I'll be just fine, no - , yes, fine.' His spark skipped a pulse when the word came out. He saw no reason for this. And he spotted the floater again, the innocent, non-threatening floater of the countdown.

 

 

 

It had been merely seconds, but when Tailgate realised what he just did, he was a little bit terrified by himself.

The glass in his servo had shattered from the strength he had applied to the clutches, without himself being aware. No, Tailgate had never had this in him. No.

'Sorry Swervy,' he blushed, and produced some Shanix to pay for the drink and the container.

'You are a little bit... off, tonight, bud,' Swerve sounded concerned, but then again, he always was.

Tailgate turned his helm around to take another look around the bar as he crossed the doorstep. The air smelt energised, the lighting looked obnoxious, and the crowd appeared as if there wasn't a thing on Cybertron they couldn't solve with their wits and upbeat spirits, or their pride, or their uncontested good sense that a bot's life doesn't go to places he likes the least in the universe without good reason. No... that was not what they looked. This was despicably sentimental. Realising this, Tailgate snapped his processor out of it.

This was merely...time going on with him quietly looking, like always.

The peaceful were with the All Spark, and the lively were going about things of their respective significance. Between these, however, Tailgate frowned as he felt he was having a hard time locating a place of his own.

He then noticed there was an unread message in his comm, apparently having been there for quite some time now. _From Cyclonus._

An extra pulse from his spark and he opened the message after missing it twice with his now unreliable clicks.

'In the Med-bay. Will be in hab suite after.'

* * *

 

By the time Tailgate returned, the big guy was already in recharge.

Tailgate saw that from the door and, without opticking his own side, he walked directly up to Cyclonus' berth.

Under the dim light coming in through the window, reflected by a nearby moon, Tailgate spotted a few strange traces on Cyclonus' face, which looked so freshly repaired and polished it led him to suspect that something had recently happened under them.

He could have another guess. But he grew tired of it.

Tailgate tiptoed back to his own berth and gingerly sat down. He did not feel like recharge yet. He might just do something to keep himself occupied.

The galaxy outside the window was a pretty view. It was amazing, thinking how, be a bot lively or peaceful, these stars would coexist with him, always, regardless of the lapse of time.

So there was something for him to do. With tiny white legs dangling from the edge of the berth, Tailgate started to try concentrating really hard, for he knew, if he managed this well, he could feel time flow.


End file.
